I need a little clarification on the relationship of note length and tempo; are they independant? In other words, does the length of a specific note (e.g quarter note) change depending on what tempo is being used?

Ok, i kind of get it, but i'm still a little confused. In the time sig. of 4/4, Jeseries said that 4 beats equals a whole note; now i don't get what dicates the length of each beat; is it the concept of a quater note, or the tempo?

Bear with me if i seem slow at this, been trying to figure this out for a while,lol...

Ok, i kind of get it, but i'm still a little confused. In the time sig. of 4/4, Jeseries said that 4 beats equals a whole note; now i don't get what dicates the length of each beat; is it the concept of a quater note, or the tempo?

Somewhere on the music score it should tell you the beat frequency of a quarter note for that piece of music-usually at the very top.

Note duration and tempo are inextricably linked. The tempo tells you the over all 'unit of timing' and the note durations tell you the length of notes as a function of that tempo. It took me years to understand that fact alone due to poor explanations from music teachers! So when someone boasts they can play 32nd note (demisemiquavers for us Europeans-the American system is so much more logical than ours for a change!) licks, it is entirely meaningless unless they tell you the at which tempo its a subdivision of!